This problem was first encountered on an IBM x3650 in a cluster with an IBM x3550 for failover, however this problem is reproducible on a server running HyperV not part of a cluster.

When I try to run a VM based backup from inside the VM using the server backup utility to E: drive(which is an attached vhdx file). It fails with this error

Backup failed to complete. There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. make sure that, for all volumes to be backup up, the minimum required disk space

for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and volumes included in the backup. Minimum requirements: For Volume less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space. Recommended: At least 1 gigabyte of free disk space for each volume if the volume size is more than 1 gigabyte.

Detailed Error: Insufficient storage available to create either the shadow copy storage file or other shadow copy data.

In the event viewer I see this error

EventID: 521 The backup operation that started at 'TIME has failed because the Volume Shadow Copy Service operation to create a shadow copy of the volumes being backed up failed with following error code '0x80780119'. Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.

This problem was not happening in our test setup using Server 2012 R2 MSDN copy, before rolling out to production  using our Volume license copy of server. So as a test I installed two VMs on a Host(MSDN), one VM using our MSDN copy of server and one with our  Volume license copy of server, very simple install, install Windows backup, attach VHDx file and attempt bare metal backup. The MSDN copy is able to perform the bare metal backup. The Volume license copy fails with the above errors.

Has anyone else run into this problem? Or any ideas on where to look to see the differences between the two VMs that is stopping the backup from completing?

EDIT:

To trouble shoot and get it as simple as possible I tried a 3rd server with just hyperV installed, not part of the cluster. The VM that I install from our MSDN DVD(burned from ISO) the backups work fine. The VM I install from our Volume license copy DVD(burned ISO) fails the bare metal backup with the above 

I have since verified this on two different servers, VM installed with MSDN copy of server 2012 R2 work for bare metal backups, VMs installed with purchased Volume license copies of Server 2012 R2 do not work for bare metal backups, another bit of info on the server that cant perform bare metal backups, its able to back up C: drive fine, its not until I hit bare metal back up that it fails.

I found this post which is similar to my problem I think, but when I tried his fix, and attempted to recover the VM the Windows PE System image recovery said it couldn't find a image to recover. http://superuser.com/questions/663782/windows-8-1-insufficient-storage-available-to-create-shadow-copy

• Edited by Chris PML IT Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:59 AM Edits

Hi Chris,

As the error related to :Insufficient storage", I think we still need to check the current VSS storage space settings with vssadmin list storagespace

Please check if there is enough space set for saving backup. You could test to set the maxsize to unbounded as a test:

vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=c /on=c /maxsize=unbounded

Hi 

I didnt find that command but I did find vssadmin list shadowStorage and below is the output

PS C:\Users\Administrator> vssadmin list shadowStorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2013 Microsoft Corp.

Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{15b226e4-b4bb-4667-8e1d-6e341182c5b5}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{15b226e4-b4bb-4667-8e1d-6e341182c5b5}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 12.6 GB (10%)

Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (E:)\\?\Volume{3479d2ab-50d2-11e3-80b6-00155d011712}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (E:)\\?\Volume{3479d2ab-50d2-11e3-80b6-00155d011712}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 8.64 MB (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.94 GB (1%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 39.0 GB (30%)

Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (\\?\Volume{5e1373af-6fc6-44ef-b3ff-caf1f00cac60}\)\\?\Volume{5e1373af-6fc6-44ef-b3ff-caf1f00cac60}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (\\?\Volume{5e1373af-6fc6-44ef-b3ff-caf1f00cac60}\)\\?\Volume{5e1373af-6fc6-44ef-b3ff-caf
1f00cac60}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 32.0 MB (10%)

Thanks for getting back to me.

Chris

Chris,

Did you try moving the shadowstorage to a different location ?

Command to Move VSS Snapshot on Map Drive while Backup is in Progress: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc788051.aspx#BKMK_examples

vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=d: /on=z: /maxsize=unbounded

To limit snapshot max size

vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=d: /on=z: /maxsize=40%

To revert back the above command: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.01.rapidrecovery.aspx

VSSAdmin Create Shadow /For=D: /AutoRetry=2

Thanks,

Anantesh

• Marked as answer by Chris PML IT Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:03 PM

Hi

Thanks for getting back to me. From my point of view a fresh install Server 2012 R2 using a MSDN copy should work the same as our Volume license copy, I should not have to change things and run powershell commands to get windows to just do an image backup, this is driving me crazy L

From testing I found that the disk management snap in was saying I had lots of free space when I did not. I ran the powershell command Get-Volume and it shows the following for my recovery volumes in my test VMs I also used diskpart to assign a drive letter to the recovery drive so I could see its contents

HyperV VM Gen 2 Installed with MSDN, Recovery Volume Size: 300MBs,  Free Space: 59.83MBs, Winre.wim file size: 215MBs

HyperV VM Gen 2 Installed with Volume license copy Recovery Volume Size: 300MBs,  Free Space: 30.24MBs, Winre.wim file size: 243MBs

HyperV VM Gen 1 Installed with Volume license copy System Reserved(AKA Recovery)Volume Size: 350MBs,  Free Space: 61.07MBs, Winre.wim file size: 243MBs

As you can see the MSDN copy has a smaller winre.wim file which allows the free space to be above 50MBs so you dont get this error For Volume less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space.

When installing to the Gen 1 VM the Volume license copy makes a larger Recovery drive so the free space is above 50MBs however it fails to do this on Gen 2 VMs and the backups fail.

Another small bit of info is the file size difference between the two server 2012 ISO files is about 28MBs exactly the difference between the two different winre.wim files.

To temporarily fix this problem I copied over the smaller winre.wim file from the MSDN VM to the Volume license VM and the backups work, they even work to do a complete recovery from, but at that point the Volume license ISO I am using to do the image recovery puts its larger winre.wim file back in and backups fail again the newly recovered VM.

I also tried the vssadmin resize shadowStorage command but it wouldnt take the Volume IDs, so I had to assign them a drive letter and set its size to unbounded and the backups still failed.

I then found that if I shrunk C drive down by 512MBs and created a new partition and added Shadow Storage to it with the following command, S being mapped to the recovery volume
vssadmin Add ShadowStorage /For=S: /On=F: /MaxSize=UNBOUNDED
The BACKUPS WORK!!

Finally the backups work however after recovering the new VM image the Add ShadowStorage Map is lost and has to be recreated for backups to work again. Not a great fix but better than nothing right now.  Now my question is, will MS release a hotfix for this sometime soon?

Thanks

Chris

• Marked as answer by Chris PML IT Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:31 PM

Chris.. Glad to know that its working for you now. Incase if my post helped , please mark it as answer so that it would be helpful for others too..

Cheers.. Anantesh

Hi

I marked your post as the answer is it helped me find a work around, but this still seems very much like a MS install bug. It happens when installing windows, where it does not create a large enough recovery partition and free space is less than 50MBs. I see lots of post for Windows 8.1 where this is a problem. How do I go about bringing this to MS attention so they can fix it?

Chris

Chris,

Thank you for marking the reply as answer.

Would it be possible for you to post an image of Disk Management of the server.

- Anantesh

Hi Anantesh

This is a screenshot of Disk Management, You can see that the recovery Partition is only 300MBs where it should have made it 350MBs to allow for larger than 50MBs of free space just like it does when installing to a Generation 1 VM. You can see the Backup VSS Volume I had to create to map the ShadowStorage to so backups work.  Below that I included the powershell Get-Volume output where it correctly shows how much free space the Recovery Volume has vs the Disk Management that says its all free space. Let me know if you want to see anything else.

Thanks for the help.
Chris

I just built 2 Windows 2012 R2 production release VMs on Windows Server 2012 R2 hyper-v and am getting the same errors.  Pretty messed up the that GA release still has these issues.

• Proposed as answer by edcquem Wednesday, January 28, 2015 5:57 PM

Also having the same problem trying to backup Gen2 VM Bare Metal Recovery/System State from DPM 2012 R2. I appreciate the work around, but agree with Chris that this is a problem which needs to be addressed with a hotfix, and soon. Especially since the work around has to be re-applied anytime you recover the system from backup.

Here is another relevant post on the same issue: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/17b6f662-a639-4762-9619-3beff1bfb185/dpm-2012-r2-and-bare-metal-recoverysystem-state-system-protection-hyperv-generation-2-vm-support

I am also experiencing the same problem  Gen2 VM Bare Metal Recovery/System State except using Windows Server Backup.  The vss error is the same and I believe it has the same root cause.

Hi,

I pinged the Windows team and they are aware of the problem and are working on a fix.

Below is a workaround suggested by the Windows team.

1.  Disable WinRE (Open elevated command prompt and Run: reagentc /disable)
2.  Take system image backup
3.  Enable WinRE (Open elevated command prompt and Run: reagentc /enable)

UPDATE: The Windows team has published KB article ID 2930294:

System image backup fails after you upgrade to Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2

This solved the issue for me.  I was able to create a system state/bmr backup after diasbling the winre service.  After renabling the service, I then successfully created a recovery point.  

Any update on this for a hotfix, patch, etc.?  Or will I need to do this with all 2012 R2 servers when we bring them into DPM?

Thanks,

Hi,

Windows group needs to release the fix. I don't have ETA, I'm on the DPM support team.

In the meantime, for customers using DPM for backups, see the following DPM post for a scripted way for DPM backups to succeed.

DUMP

Still no word from Microsoft? Can we please get a response from MS Support about ETA of Fix. This is pretty major for anyone relying on WSB for image backups. 

has there been any update?

Thanks Mike, Working almost a day on this error before I found this post.
Frustrating that the errors doesnt seems WinRE related, however glad I find a workaround here.
Hoping for a (hot)fix soon.

Best regards,

Ivan Henderix

Hey everyone.

I just ran into this same issue on a brand new 2012 R2 Hyper-V host, and I have an easier way to fix it than to assign a drive letter and use Powershell.  As Chris described, we need to change the location of the ShadowStorage for the recovery volume.  This can be done on the "Shadow Copies" tab on the Local Disk (C:) properties.  Simply find the Recovery volume, click the settings button, change the "Located on this volume" drop down to one with enough free space, and raise the use limit to something feasible.

Worked for me, and I'm much more comfortable doing this than shutting down WinRE.

Regards,

Mike

• Proposed as answer by mkingcmj Thursday, March 06, 2014 4:14 PM

Indeed Mike, seems to work for me also :-)

Thanks for sharing!

Regards,

Ivan

Hi Mike

Just wanted to say thanks, your solution worked great... :)

Hi Mike,

Thanks for this post, I was already wondering how to change the VSS recovery settings (I totally forgot the way to do it thru the GUI).

Ren

• Proposed as answer by Stubarbs Thursday, June 05, 2014 7:31 PM
• Unproposed as answer by Stubarbs Thursday, June 05, 2014 7:43 PM
• Proposed as answer by Stubarbs Thursday, June 05, 2014 7:43 PM

Install WS2012 manually without the auto install which some VM environment's do for you.

Select the custom installation

Delete the partition which you want to install WS2012 on

Create a new 100 MB partition

On the unallocated space select new and it will create the partitions ws2012 requests

Delete the 100 MB partition created before

This will give you 100 MB of unallocated space at the beginning of the drive before the recovery partition

Go ahead and install WS2012

After the installation you will need to use a 3rd party partition program to extend the beginning of the recovery partition to use the unallocated space. (easeus partition manager, paragon partition manager, there are others available) we all have some of these in our IT kit.

You will the see in your disk management a recovery partition of 400 MB

Backup will now work without the 'There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location' error

I have tried and tested this multiple times including bare metal recovery and it brings the drives back to the  same state and working.

Stu Barber

• Proposed as answer by Stubarbs Thursday, June 05, 2014 9:17 PM

Hello ;

really great post here , I faced the same issue , and the most easy way which mkingcmj post

very easy and so simple .

Thanks a lot

MK

Thank you so much Mike - this made the day for me. We have a DC that needs backing up. Thinking of creating a dedicated volume for having the shadow copies to be created, but until now we are utilizing the partition holding the DIT for this - do you see any potential problems with that? 

I made a separate backup of the system before doing this hence it appears as if everything is working just fine.

The KB above says the following and lists a newer version than I have after just installing a VM and it has this problem. But as per below the fix is out somewhere or we are still waiting on it?  No links in the download.

Update information

How to obtain the update

This update is applied when you upgrade to the release version of Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2.

Update replacement information

This update does not replace any previously released update.

.6.3.9600.16521is the updates , 16408 is off the install.

Hey everyone.

I just ran into this same issue on a brand new 2012 R2 Hyper-V host, and I have an easier way to fix it than to assign a drive letter and use Powershell.  As Chris described, we need to change the location of the ShadowStorage for the recovery volume.  This can be done on the "Shadow Copies" tab on the Local Disk (C:) properties.  Simply find the Recovery volume, click the settings button, change the "Located on this volume" drop down to one with enough free space, and raise the use limit to something feasible.

Worked for me, and I'm much more comfortable doing this than shutting down WinRE.

Regards,

Mike

Thx, this did the job..

Same problem here. Here is how I fixed it simply in the GUI. 

Right click on the C:\ drive and select [Condifure Shadow Copies]. You'll have a volume that looks something like this:

Select it and hit the settings button. Tell it to put shadow copies for the volume on another partition (I elected C:\) and give it some space - like shown. Set the schedule to your preferences. 

Hit ok to close out of the dialog boxes. Your backups should now be working..

I had this problem because Microsoft's System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2 would not back up my servers. This post led me to discover it was insufficient space on my recovery partition for the shadow copy. The above moved the copy to another partition w/ plenty of space thus solving the issue. 

I am in the same position, using DPM. I've changed my VSC storage area to a volume with over a terabyte free; gave it no limit and still DPM backups and Windows server backup fails. I usually use 3rd party apps for backup; MS has solidified why. 

Working now, thanks.